More Muhammads, Fewer Matthews: The Real Story Behind Popular Names In Britain

In case you missed it — and you likely did, thanks to the media’s increasingly strategic silence — Muhammad is once again the most popular baby boy’s name in England and Wales. For the second year running, more parents have named their sons after the Prophet of Islam than any other figure, overtaking names like Noah and Oliver. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) confirmed the trend: over 5,700 babies were given the name Muhammad (spelled exactly that way), marking a steady and significant cultural shift.

Cue the hysteria.

“They’re taking over!” You can almost hear the knives being sharpened in GB News studios. Nigel Farage’s brow furrows with concern, and a thousand right-wing columnists prepare to write about immigration, birthrates, and “British values.” The usual suspects are already milking the name rankings for political mileage — as if a name, or a baby for that matter, is a threat to civilisation.

Let’s ground this conversation in reality.

Despite what the nativist panic suggests, Muslims in the UK make up around 6.5% of the total population — not even one-tenth of the country. And yet their cultural presence, especially in areas like naming, family, and community, is far more pronounced. Why?

Because Muslim families are still having children.

And therein lies the real story — not about Muslims “taking over,” but about two fundamentally different worldviews when it comes to the family, children, and society itself.

Children: Blessing or Burden?

In liberal secular societies, the decision to have children is increasingly framed as an economic calculation. Fertility becomes a spreadsheet problem. Can we afford them? Will it affect our careers? Is the housing market suitable? Can we still travel? Will they take away from our personal freedom?

These questions aren’t wrong — they reflect the logic of the system. But that system also tells us that individual autonomy trumps community, that marriage is optional, and that the very idea of parenting might be a kind of loss of self. The result?

• A collapsing birth rate.
• A rise in loneliness.
• A generation that finds the idea of commitment — to another, to a child, to a future — burdensome.

The statistics are grim:

• 1 in 7 people in the UK live alone (ONS, 2023)
• Birth rates have declined by 36% since 1970 (World Bank)
• The UK fertility rate is now 1.49 children per woman, well below the replacement level of 2.1
• The number of marriages has fallen by over 50% since the 1970s
• Loneliness is now classed as a public health issue by the NHS

The Bigger Picture: A Society Growing Old

What the right ignores — or pretends not to understand — is that Britain isn’t being overrun by children, it’s being overtaken by old age.

According to the ONS (2024 data):

• The UK has more people aged 65 and over than under 15 for the first time in modern history.
• By 2045, a quarter of the population will be over 65.
• The median age in the UK is 41.7, and rising.
• The working-age population is shrinking relative to retirees.

This demographic imbalance has deep implications:

• A smaller workforce to support an ageing population
• Increased strain on pensions, healthcare, and social care
• Lower economic output and productivity
• A growing reliance on foreign labour to plug workforce gaps

Is it any surprise, then, that the very politicians shouting “stop the boats!” are the same ones quietly issuing visas to thousands of foreign workers — from nurses and fruit-pickers to care home staff?

Because the truth is unavoidable: Britain needs migrants to survive. Its own native birth rate is too low. Its youth population is thinning. Its elderly population is ballooning. It has outsourced its future to policies it pretends to hate.

Islamic Social Structure: Family First

In contrast, Islam doesn’t frame children as economic burdens. They are not a line item on a budget — they are blessings. The Qur’an teaches that every child comes with their own rizq — their provision. The idea that children will “cost too much” doesn’t shape Muslim family life in the same way. It’s a question of faith, not finances.

Even in the most difficult conditions — from the streets of Blackburn to the bombed-out ruins of Gaza — Muslims continue to have children. Not because they’re reckless or unaware of hardship, but because they believe deeply in legacy, in hope, and in the continuation of the Prophet’s ﷺ example through the next generation.

The name Muhammad isn’t just a name — it’s a statement of identity. It’s a reminder of who they aspire their sons to be. Even in diaspora, even in poverty, even in war, the family unit remains sacred in Islam.

And yes — while many Muslims in Britain are not immune from the wider social ills (drugs, crime, alcohol, and so on), this one aspect of the Islamic social order remains largely intact: family is central. Children are wanted. Futures are imagined. Legacies are preserved.

Liberalism’s Great Contradiction

When Western societies chose to become transactional, they also began to erode some of the most basic human instincts — to bond, to belong, to reproduce. Increasingly, relationships are temporary, sex is recreational, and families are optional. Love is mediated through apps, and meaning is outsourced to consumerism.

Same-sex marriages, while protected by law, statistically contribute to the decline in childbearing households in already collapsing fertility ecosystems.

The system, built on autonomy and individualism, now stands confused: it has freedom, but lacks fulfilment.

So when Farage and his ilk try to weaponise baby name rankings for their political ends, they’re looking in the wrong place. The issue isn’t Muslims “having too many children.” The issue is a social system that has stopped believing in the future — and stopped producing one.

The Final Word

The most popular boy’s name in England and Wales is Muhammad. Again.
This isn’t a threat. It’s a mirror.

And what it reflects is not just who’s naming their children — but who still believes in having them at all.

It’s high time Muslims stand proud of a social system that showers the young and the old with mercy — a system that doesn’t see human beings as economic burdens or interruptions to career plans. This is a system built on care, responsibility, and dignity. And it’s precisely this conversation that Muslims must take to wider society.

Because ask yourself: what man, woman, or child does not want to love and be loved, to feel wanted, protected, and cared for? These are not luxuries — they are innate needs, hardwired into us. But in a transactional, secular order, they’re traded for superficial freedoms and a false sense of security.

And so we see a world where people endlessly search for fulfilment, chasing self-worth through consumption, distraction, or isolation — all the while ignoring the very foundation of it all, lying beneath their noses.